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07/25/08
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June 25,
2007 Recently, several friends have forwarded me an interesting piece by Perry Willis, formerly the Communications Director for the National Libertarian Committee and now with an organization called "DownsizeDC.org" which I reprint here: D o w n s i z e r - D i s p a t c h Please share with concerned friends . . . Subject: Mind-boggling Congressional stupidity Picture this: A Mexican migrant worker sits down to read the new 700+ page Senate immigration bill. He doesn't know a lick of English, but he's giving it a go anyway. He wants to obey the law, so he has to know the difference between a Z-visa and an a, b, c, d or whatever visa. Can't imagine it happening? Well how about this . . . This Mexican worker earns a whopping $15 a week working in Mexico, but he really does want to obey the law, so he spends a month's salary for a lawyer to tell him how to work in the U.S. legally. Still can't picture it? Well how about this . . . The Mexican just ignores the whole thing and walks across the border. This last scenario makes the Mexican look pretty smart, and Congress, and huge chunks of the American public, pretty stupid. Can we really expect a Mexican to read and understand our laws, when not even Congress does? Only a politician would be surprised if the average Mexican migrant worker says, "I don't need no stinkin' z-visa." And only a fantasy-prone mind would expect our omni-incompetent federal government to enforce this "people prohibition scheme" any better than it has all of its other prohibition fiascoes. Gun prohibition doesn't stop criminals from having guns. Drug prohibition doesn't stop people from buying and selling drugs. And people prohibition isn't going to stop poor people from going where the money is, or businessmen from seeking the best price for labor. Try as it might, the U.S. Congress cannot repeal the law of supply and demand. So what will this law really accomplish? The answer should be obvious . . . This new immigration law will expand federal control over law abiding U.S. citizens. Businesses that comply with this law will feel the heavy hand of the state as they strive to do background checks on every person they hire. Law abiding businesses will suffer, while those that participate in the black market for cheap labor will thrive. Law abiding workers will also suffer. You will be subject to background checks, but those working in the black market will not. All prohibition schemes of all types share several crucial features. They all ignore the law of supply and demand. And they all succeed in punishing only a few of the guilty, while making all of the innocent suffer from the negative consequences that flow from a black market. The truth is that this so-called immigration reform is really about the REAL ID Act. The electronic verification aspects of this bill (which is just code for the REAL ID Act), are the only parts of this bill that will have any real impact. And the impact will be on YOU, the legal worker, or you, the legal business operator. Methinks what we really need is a bill to deport Congress, but in the meantime, we should all work to have electronic background checks removed from any immigration bill Congress passes. You can tell Congress to do that HERE. If you've already told them once, please tell them again, just to make sure they hear you. Thank you for being a DC Downsizer, and please consider making a contribution or starting a monthly pledge to further our work. You can do so here. https://secure.downsizedc.org/contribute/ Perry Willis Just hours
later, I received a message attacking this piece from an acquaintance
who is a "conservative" located in South Dakota: A Mex or any breed of alien walking across our borders makes a fool out of ALL Citizens of this country, do not be stupid enough to try and blame this solely on congress, your fellow greedy farmers, landscapers, contractors, you and I, etc are as much or more to blame than any member of congress. I digress from any further Perry Willis Misconceptions! But this whole article is crap. And as far as it addresses the Real ID Act, which I oppose and have sent every member of the senate a letter in objection to, it is just another venomous rhetorical piece to slam congress with out addressing any type or real solution to the problem! Just once I wish one of these anti-Real ID Act conspirators would actually come up with some kind of real solution to the problem at hand. As Long as Americans are willing to ignore or support their fellow Americans who hire Illegal Aliens and are willing to turn a blind eye to all things in the name of Liberty, Freedom & Democracy they should realize they are taking these sacred titles in vain. When American Citizens allow people to break laws within Her borders and decide it is their prerogative to break the Laws of this Nation within Her Borders they fail to understand what their Freedom & Liberty are based upon. Must we often remind ourselves we are a Republic! "for the true idea of a republic is "an empire of laws, and not of men." "Without liberty, law loses its nature and its name, and becomes oppression. Without law, liberty also loses its nature and its name, and becomes licentiousness." I realize that this will result in all kinds of debate. Bring it on. And no I do not agree with All Laws of this nation but work to keep all laws of this nation to the best of my ability as it is a Patriotic Duty as Is Working to change Laws to protect an evolving free nation. ___________ I found
myself eager to respond to his challenge, and so I submit my responses
to his reply to Perry: I use the name "Steve" as a pseudonym.
I think
you are setting up too many straw men just to argue with Perry's article,
and as a result, missing the entire point of the article. In doing so,
you are harming the cause of both conservative and libertarian advocates
who are fighting the so-called "immigration reform" bill. I've
inserted my comments below yours: I Strongly Support Down Size DC and their efforts however, this piece of garbage is not worth the power it takes to display it. First off it is full of misconceptions. Like the Mex not understanding the Z Visa. First off if Jose wants to be An AMERICAN! he better learn English. Willis is NOT, as far as I can see, arguing that the proverbial Mexican wannabe immigrant should NOT learn English. Of course, your "personalization" of "Jose" and your constant use of the slang term "Mex" can be viewed as derogatory, if we are going to nitpick your article as you did Perry's. You Are A WORTHLESS CITIZEN IF YOU CAN NOT READ YOUR BALLOT! Perry's article isn't about citizenship: it is about legal immigration. NO immigrant, legal or illegal, should be reading a ballot because only a citizen, naturalized or natural, should be voting! Secondly I don't understand why the mexican Worker earning $15 a week working in Mexico even needs to understand or obey any American laws. Z visas only apply to current Outlaw Aliens who have blatantly broken American Laws Working In America!! Are you sure? That is what the Congressional critturs are saying, but trying to read that piece of garbage, I am not sure - it may apply to more than just illegal immigrants currently living in the US. (Of course, a good many of them don't speak English, let alone read it, anyway - try ordering at a Taco Bell in Glenwood Springs or Rawlins or some parts of Omaha.) As for why a Mexican earning $15/week needs to understand or follow US laws, you later argue exactly that - if they want to get to a country that is a better place to live and where people can make a decent living and live decently, the guy (or gal) pretty much DOES need to understand and obey American laws. A Mex or any breed of alien walking across our borders makes a fool out of ALL Citizens of this country, do not be stupid enough to try and blame this solely on congress, your fellow greedy farmers, landscapers, contractors, you and I, etc are as much or more to blame than any member of congress. I digress from any further Perry Willis Misconceptions! Just because they make fools out of all of us, doesn't distract and shouldn't distract from the fact that Congress is being made fools of. (Again.) Supposedly, these people, like Tim and Stephanie and dear John [South Dakota's Congressional Delegation] are elected by their PEERS to be wise and smart representatives - so if they are fools, then apparently the people who voted from them are no doubt bigger fools. But again, you are nibbling at minor things that distract from the main point Perry was making, and claiming that Perry is pushing a "misconception" when he calls Congress foolish. Please! But this whole article is crap. And as far as it addresses the Real ID Act, which I oppose and have sent every member of the senate a letter in objection to, it is just another venomous rhetorical piece to slam congress with out addressing any type or real solution to the problem! Just once I wish one of these anti-Real ID Act conspirators would actually come up with some kind of real solution to the problem at hand. Your language distracts from your argument, Steve. I really wish you wouldn't slide into language that turns off people. But otherwise ignoring that, the purpose of the article was NOT to present a solution, but rather, to encourage more people to join the anti-REAL ID coalition. The only thing that Perry encourages readers to do is to write their Congress-critturs (insult intentional on my part) to tell them that background checks on US citizens by potential employers should not be federally mandated. He is not proposing a solution - and I agree that a solution is needed, but this article wasn't a forum for that. (And by the way, a LOT of people have provided any number of solutions to the problems that the REAL-ID claimed to solve. I don't know if Perry has done so, but again, that wasn't the purpose of the article. As Long as Americans are willing to ignore or support their fellow Americans who hire Illegal Aliens and are willing to turn a blind eye to all things in the name of Liberty, Freedom & Democracy they should realize they are taking these sacred titles in vain. When American Citizens allow people to break laws with in Her borders and decide it is their prerogative to break the Laws of this Nation with in Her Borders they fail to understand what their Freedom & Liberty are based upon. Whew! When I start seeing all those capitalized words, I get nervous. Once more, Steve, you seem to blame individual Americans for the failure of Congress and the federal government to act - to enforce existing laws that supposedly "solved" the problem back in 1986 - and you very well may be right, since theoretically we elected them, and theoretically they work for us. (Don't laugh too hard, please.) Strange, though, isn't it? You are saying that it is individual Americans' fault that immigration laws are a dead letter, right? That we are trashing our principles by tolerating lawbreakers and people who hire lawbreakers or fail to turn lawbreakers in. Let's apply that idea a wee bit more broadly. Millions of us violate traffic laws every day, as well as laws like drunken driving and mandatory insurance, oh, yes, and let us not forget the drug laws and the gun laws. Yet, nationally, cops still try to enforce these laws on an hourly basis. Even though the violators of those laws probably outnumber the 12 (or 20) million illegals by a factor of 3 or 4, if not more. Same thing applies to many other laws. Something is wrong here. Apparently the bad Americans who take "these sacred titles in vain" outnumber the good Americans. Yet there aren't very many calls (especially not from the Administration nor the Congress) for "amnesty" for all these criminals. No cries of "we can't punish all those folks so we have to forgive them." No plans for a driving or drug-use equivalent of a "z-visa." I guess that none of us understand what freedom and liberty are, based on that. And I might point out, it is the Senate that is "allowing people to break laws within [sic] Her [sic] borders and decide it is their prerogative [sic] to break the Laws [sic] of this Nation within [sic] Her [sic] Borders [sic]" by passing this amnesty bill. But this is actually a distraction from the article. I notice you did not attack Perry's logic on prohibition and its effects on the free market (or even on unfree markets). That only serves to buttress Perry's main argument, but it is a useful support - people will find a way to get around any prohibition, and a new law that fails to recognize this fact will be a dismal failure, just as the last half-dozen or so immigration laws have failed. And obviously, anyone with a course in micro- and macro-economics should understand this; even the critturs in Congress should understand that. And, like Perry, I suspect that they DO. This leads to the conclusion that Perry had: this bill, like so many others in recent years, has a hidden purpose: control and power; and its stated purpose is nothing but eyewash. Must we often remind ourselves we are a Republic! No, we WERE a Republic. (And not a democracy, although you use the word in the previous paragraph. But that is a subject for another argument.) "for the true idea of a republic is "an empire of laws, and not of men." If only that were the case in the United States of 2007! But not ANY laws, and not laws that regulate every minute of every day. Your definition of "republic" would fit perfectly well with the totalitarian ideal of "Anything not explicitly permitted is absolutely forbidden." Even though, as history shows, any attempt to enforce such an edict quickly turns a nation of laws into a nation of scheming and double-dealing men. "Without liberty, law loses its nature and its name, and becomes oppression. Without law, liberty also loses its nature and its name, and becomes licentiousness." Indeed, precisely one of the supporting points Perry made in his article: we are seeing a law which (again, like so many others of our 21st Century world) takes another measure of liberty away, and not only becomes oppression, but facilitates MORE oppression. I realize that this will result in all kinds of debate. Bring it on. I am. And no I do not agree with All Laws of this nation but work to keep all laws of this nation to the best of my ability as it is a Patriotic Duty as Is Working to change Laws to protect an evolving free nation. No, such obedience is not patriotism, but jingoism, and fortunately, "patriotic" Americans have long understood and practiced the idea that bad laws, not just unconstitutional laws, but immoral laws, should NOT be obeyed. Our history is full of this, for good or bad: Americans ignored the Parliamentary Proclamation of 1763 which prohibited travel and settlement beyond the crest of the Appalachians. They ignored Mexican prohibitions on worship of God as they saw fit in Texas. They ignored the Fugitive Slave Laws and allowed slaves of a different race to escape to freedom. They ignored federal prohibitions on seeking gold and living in the Black Hills. They ignored laws making it illegal to own gold coins. They ignored laws making it illegal to buy and sell alcoholic beverages. And so on. In summary, Perry Willis' piece had a very specific objective, and he used several good points to support his appeal for people to fight one part of the obscene immigration "reform" bill. Even as a supporter of immigration control, I would think that you would support him, setting aside differences for the sake of the immediate fight, instead of setting up a whole series of strawmen to try and discredit his work. Fighting this bill is suitable for both sides of the issue of open immigration. Let us all work together instead of letting issues divide us, on this one piece of legislation; there will be lots of opportunities to have a knockdown, drag-out fight on the basic issue. Nathan
Nathan Barton is writing this from a wonderful place in the West, which might be in the Black Hills of South Dakota or Wyoming, or might be in one of the Four Corners States. Exactly where it is, the breezes blow with the scent of liberty, and the sound of the pines or the pinions is the sound of freedom. For thousands of years, people have fought and died for the liberty that Americans in the great spaces of the West enjoy, and he writes these commentaries in the hopes that continued generations will be able to do so, until the end of Time. |
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